D M R Dissanayake

Senior Lecturer, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

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A Munasinghe

Kelani Cables PLC, Sri Lanka

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ABSTRACT

Strategic acquisition and merges are quite challenging and risky decisions in the business world. The strategic decision made by ACL Cables PLC (hereafter refers as ACL), then market leader of cable manufacturing and marketing industry of Sri Lanka, acquired Kelani Cables PLC (hereafter refers as KCL or Kelani as required in the explanations) in the year 1999. However, both companies catered to the same market segments adopting different marketing strategies whilst strategic decisions were carefully managed by its senior management to find synergy between the value chain operations of two companies. However, by the time this case study is being written in 2017, KCL was able to mark its strategic position in the market with high-flying performances as a brand compared to the position of ACL had been. Presently, both brands are positioned in B2B and B2C scopes delivering customer expectations with differentiated value propositions. Authors followed case story style to organize and present this case study by focusing to strategic management as the main foundations of case explanations. Authors did comprehensive discussions with the present ownership and senior management of both companies whilst related publications of ACL and KCL were used to verify the information. Some of the empirical publications done on cable market of Sri Lanka were also associated to support the contents. 

Accordingly, this case study narrates the case story of the acquisition decision of ACL Cables PLC including the main highlights of the incident. Alongside, this case study presents the history of KCL, main incidents and millstones of both companies, implementation of acquisition decision and the post-acquisition scenarios of both companies.  Then, the core of the case study is to explain the strategic model and decisions implemented by the senior management of ACL and KCL to strategize the synergy effects of value chain operations of both companies. The operational insights of such strategic model need to be investigated to learn the managerial insights for practitioners. Thus, the case study unveils key operational aspects brought into implementation phase with related information sources.  Finally, authors concluded the main learning directions of the content whilst key insights of the case study were also summarized within the scope of strategic synergies.  

Keywords: Acquisitions, Cable Industry, Strategic Synergy, Value Chain.

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